On your left, still more shrapnel scars: Dubrovnik

July 22, 2012

IT' HARD NOT to miss the shrapnel holes in the walls of old Dubrovnik. The main destruction of the war has been repaired but evidence is there in holes as deep as your thumb and in all the new roofs.

Croatia always resented, as it saw it, the way the money it earned from tourists went to subsidise the poor regions of Yugoslavia. When Tito died and the country collapsed into economic disaster, the resentment became acute and Croatia and Slovenia declared independence. The result was a siege of Dubrovnik that lasted seven months. The city was shelled from the sea and land and bombed from the air.

Read the English translation at the bottom and it's hard not to feel moved

Graphic photo of the attack on the city. No doubt the scene was repeated in many Yugoslavian cities

The attacks killed 114 civilians. The siege was eventually broken but danger remained for another three years.

For most of us, the civil war that erupted with chilling cruelty between Yugoslavian provinces, and the slaughter of populations because they professed a different religion, was experienced only in complicated news reports. The war is long over but distrust and resentment is still felt between the old enemies. The war's story is still being told in war crime courts.

It's a pleasant place now, Dubrovnik, although full of tourists, of course. Especially so since this is the week of the summer festival. We take a guided tour led by a woman who speaks fluent English and Italian but lacks a sense of humour. We walk the city walls and then collapse, exhausted tourists, into our beds.

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